Religious organizations' religious discrimination and government funding

[Rick Duncan]

This should be an easy 1A case. The CLS is being
denied its Free Speech right of equal access to a
public forum solely because it asserted its 1A right
of expressive association.

Imagine if the student chapter of the NAACP were
denied access to a limited public forum because it
refused to allow David Duke to inject White Supremacy
into the NAACP's weekly discussion of the need for
racial tolerance.

To the extent that the LDS student's views of
scripture were inconsistent with the CLS's views, it
seems perfectly reasonable for a group to protect its
right of expressive association by refusing to allow
the student to teach a Bible Study.

An LDS group, of course, should have the same right to
reject, as a discussion leader, an evangelical student
who wanted to teach that the Book of Mormon was not
the true word of God. 

This should be an easy 1A case, and, if common sense
prevails, the University should admit it is wrong and
apologize profusely to the CLS for restricting its 1A
rights of speech and expressive association.

Rick Duncan




--- "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu> wrote:

> 	From
>
http://cjonline.com/stories/092204/loc_lawsuit.shtml:
> 
> 	"The Christian Legal Society chapter at Washburn
> University has
> filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Topeka
> against university
> officials who revoked the society's funding after a
> student alleged
> discrimination.
> 
> 	"The dispute began in the spring semester when
> Washburn law
> student Daniel Arkell volunteered to lead a Bible
> study at a meeting of
> the Christian Legal Society. Arkell, a member of the
> Church of Jesus
> Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared religious
> beliefs during several
> Bible studies that some members of CLS thought were
> inconsistent to the
> statement of faith of the Christian Legal Society.
> The society then
> decided not to allow Arkell to lead further Bible
> studies.
> 
> 	"Arkell filed a charge of religious discrimination
> in April
> against CLS and asked the Washburn Student Bar
> Association to revoke
> funding for CLS. The bar association revoked the CLS
> chapter's funding
> on Sept. 2 after a hearing."
> 
> 	The complaint is at
> http://www.cjonline.com/stories/092104/washburn.pdf
> .  Do people think
> the CLS should win?   Hsu v. Roslyn Union Free
> School Dist., 85 F.3d 839
> (2d Cir.1996), would seem to point in their favor,
> if the case's Equal
> Access Act logic were found to be applicable to the
> Free Speech Clause
> analysis.
> 
> 	Eugene
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=====
Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle

"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered."  --The Prisoner

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